“I love this record, it means so much to me. It gave us access to the world”
Snow Patrol have been honoured as the first recipients of the brand-new Official Charts Hall of Fame Award.
The new accolade from the Official Charts Company will, going forward, be presented annually to the UK’s official biggest single and album of the year.
The award is part of celebrations marking 70 years of the Official Albums Chart and the Co Down band were selected as the inaugural recipients of the award to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Eyes Open.
The album gave Snow Patrol their first Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart and became the UK’s Official biggest album of 2006, which “propelled Snow Patrol from alternative-rock favourites to one of the defining bands of the decade”.
Speaking to the Official Charts as he accepted the award, frontman Gary Lightbody said: “Thank you very much, this is great! My mum will be delighted!
“I love this record, it means so much to me. It gave us access to the world – a world which we never thought we would occupy.
“We started in 1994 and didn’t have a hit until 2004. We had 10 years of no success, and then Final Straw was very successful. Then Eyes Open was extremely successful. It was very new to us, that type of success; playing the bigger shows, getting on the radio. Being in the charts was very exciting to us.
“It’s an album that still seems to live and breathe, and also change and shift. The album is an artifact that’ll never change, but the songs change, shift and evolve over time with the way we play them.”
According to Official Charts Company data, Eyes Open has gone on to shift more than 2.6 million units in the UK to date, including 2.4 million pure sales.
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